Evolution of a Hero
by ElectraSev5n
Summary: Sakura's apprenticeship under Tsunade makes her into a very different person, a hard woman whose previously untapped ingenuity makes her a force to truly be reckoned with. Sakura's strength had always been her mind, after all, even after her hands had the brute ability to punch through stone.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own anything. I am in fact surprised by how few material possessions I can claim to own, much less intellectual possessions.

Summary: Sakura's apprenticeship under Tsunade makes her into a very different person, a hard woman whose previously untapped ingenuity makes her a force to truly be reckoned with. Sakura's strength had always been her mind, after all, even after her hands had the brute ability to punch through stone. Sakura-centric story, extends from a year after Sasuke's betrayal to the day Naruto faces Pein in the rubble of Konohagakure. Explores the premise that Sakura is underdeveloped as a character and might just be the most outstanding member of her genin team.

The Very End

Sakura tore out of the archives like Kyuubi itself was on her heels, heading towards the screams. There were masses of chakra signals in two directions, and her heart pulled her both ways. She chose a direction and sped North, towards the yellow light and large dust clouds that indicated significant property damage. For all her impressive talents for control and delicacy, Tsunade had never cared for subtlety in a fight.

As she drew closer, the landscape changed. The homes she was passing became larger, and were farther apart than the ones she'd passed. The road was upturned in places, and civilians tripped towards the Hokage monument, obviously headed to the caves within for safety. But she only had eyes for two figures in the distance, a man and a woman, maybe a quarter of a mile off now. As she watched, the male figure lashed out and kicked the woman in her face. She fell to her knees.

Sakura's heart dropped to her stomach as Sasuke whipped out his chokuto, a nasty snarl twisting his aristocratic features. Tsunade was still on the ground, graying hair loose and tangled around her shoulders and trailing into the dirt. She wasn't getting up. Sakura pushed off the ground so hard that the pads of her feet pulsed from the impact and leapt in between the two shinobi.

The world became still. 'Well, this is familiar', Sakura noted in a distant part of her brain that was not preoccupied with roaring pain. Sasuke's stunned face slowly looked slightly down as if to confirm that he had indeed ran Sakura through and the warm spatter of blood on his hands belonged to her. He soundlessly opened his mouth, eyes the widest she had ever seen them.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she fought the urge to sink to her knees. "Sasuke-kun" she whispered, and reached her left hand out to tremblingly caress his collar bone. He started hoarsely "Sakura, I didn't mean…" He fell silent, clearly pained. For all that he had long considered Sakura annoying and simple-minded, Sasuke couldn't hate her. She'd been a critical part of the brightest part of his life, one of his first friends. He felt sick with guilt.

And then she sent a pulse of chakra through her hand that cleanly cut a two-inch swath through the base of his neck, leaving it barely attached to his body. He fell to his knees with a thud and then slowly keeled over sideways, grip still tight on his beloved sword. She dropped with him as the blade lodged in her torso twisted. She became aware that her throat was wet as she exhaled and blood began to coat her tongue.

Three Years Prior

Sakura Haruno stood silently, comrades pressing against her at both shoulders. One by one, the shinobi held out their left arms to accept the chakra-infused ink that would mark them with a single flame, the symbol of Tsunade's newly established corps of special Jounin. Most chose red or orange ink, to fit with the flame motif. Sakura wordlessly selected the needle filled with magenta ink she knew had been included for her. Once every shinobi present had accepted their needle, they left as quietly as they had come to have their marks administered at one of the tattoo and piercing parlors that would still be open.

Sakura had no plans to take her ink to a civilian tattoo parlor. Instead, she took it to Sai, who administered the mark on her right shoulder blade. It came dangerously close to brushing against the fingertips of the sprawling geisha tattoo that blew a kiss at the series of butterflies that wrapped up Sakura's neck. Sai had been the one to give her all her tattoos, and he remained the only man to have seen her without her top, a distinction only granted because he had expressed no physical interest in her.

These special Jounin were different from past soldiers by virtue of their training (all of them were armed with high-level medical abilities, courtesy of the training program Sakura ran) and placement in the chain of command. Tsunade's elites were bound to her and her alone, a reaction against the arrogance and power-grabbing habits of the Council of Elders.

A full fifty percent of the village's elite warriors now answered only to Tsunade, and were trained to manipulate the seals Danzo put on his operatives. The seals intended to silence and subjugate Root soldiers could now be used to instantly paralyze the carrier for an hour long period, long enough for any conflict to be long resolved. Of course, Danzo didn't know this.

A shift was coming in Konoha, a shift that would redistribute power by wresting it from the claws of established alliances. And the newest generation of Jounin would be at the forefront of it. With only the one notable exception, all of the Rookie Nine were members of Tsunade's private ranks.

Sakura slipped off her sandals and closed her door, ready to settle in for another night of reading medical scrolls and intelligence reports on foreign shinobi. It was evening, but she took the time to make herself a platter of spicy tuna sushi and a pot of green tea. She had long-since outgrown her childish discomfort in what she still thought of as her mother's kitchen.

A small part of her found it bitterly ironic that the civilian parents who had quoted statistics about the short life span of shinobi in hopes of frightening her into quitting training had in fact themselves died quite young, leaving all their material possessions in her care.

They had been moderately wealthy- few civilians could afford to send their children to the academy and forever give up hopes that they would contribute to the family business, after all. Even lowly Chunin could expect to make twice what most civilians did. Her parents had owned a chain of restaurants, started by her mother's side of the family. Sakura had no interest in working in them after her parents died, and had instead paid an elderly civilian man to manage everything for her.

The income was such that she could comfortably take low-paying missions for the rest of her career but eat out every meal until the day she died without care and replace her furniture every four years. Sakura went through furniture at a frightening rate, frequently growing sick of a chair or lamp and ripping it apart on a whim. It had been tentatively suggested by a peer at the hospital that Sakura lacked an appropriate outlet for her need to control her environment, but Sakura thought the quirk was harmless and a minor inconvenience at most.

She rolled her shoulder in an attempt to see how the movement pained her. Not bad. She pulled her black top off and looked at her back in the large mirror in her bathroom. The flame blended in well with the rest of her tattoos, as though the geisha was reaching out to touch a candle's tip.

She went to sleep without putting her shirt back on, and regretted it when Sai came to her window, clearly favoring a broken arm. She didn't regret it when she fell asleep again twined up with him after healing it, and in fact took great pleasure in removing all of the clothes she could. There was just something about sleeping naked next to a fully-clothed teammate that makes people uncomfortable, even the awkward and socially retarded Sai. No matter what emotional conditioning a human is put through, they will still know that naked people affect them strongly.


	2. Chapter 2

I own nothing.

Chapters will be longer than the first one from here on out.

Sakura trembled slightly as she worked on extending her chakra scalpel. The technique was intended to form an inch-long blade for use as a sanitized tool in emergency surgery, but Sakura was working on a bastardized version that would substitute for a much larger blade. Sakura had become used to fighting with a sword, but she tended to break blades with her superhuman strength. She was making a weapon that was just as strong as she is- not a sissy metal thing that would break whenever she forgot that her weapon had limitations and went to split stone or Naruto's fat head.

The project wouldn't have been particularly complicated, if she hadn't been born with tiny chakra reserves- the last vestige of her civilian heritage. Even after a lifetime of chakra manipulation, she only had so much capacity for growth and her reserves were only average. Most shinobi would have assumed her chakra blade project was impractical- something she could only use once in a fight, and would leave her drained and ready to be picked off like an overzealous genin trying chidori.

Sakura, however, had every intention of being a jack of all trades, and that included swordplay and sealing. Special seals on both of her palms held the chakra blades she had so far developed. All she needed to do was activate the seal, slide the blade out, and add to it whenever she had free time. So far, she was only working on storing a blade in her left palm. It was about two feet long so far and six inches wide, a construct of stationary chakra that she could twist to be three times as long and paper-thin with a mere thought. As was, it was little use, except for looking really freaking cool, that is. But when she pumped fresh, moving chakra through it to agitate the edges, it could cut through a man's skull like a hot knife through butter. It manifested as a hot-pink color, with veins of fresh blue chakra surging through it when she needed to cut. Best of all, the chakra needed to make her blade deadly was about half of the amount needed to use a regular chakra scalpel. She called it the Cuddlinator.

It was an on-going project, one she'd been working on upwards of two months, although the planning stages had been a little longer. Whenever she went on break in one of her offices (she maintained one in both the hospital and in the administration area of the Hokage tower), Sakura worked on adding a little more to her blade and whipping it in and out of her containment seals. Now, she could take it out as soon as the desire to see it manifested.

Sakura intended to eventually become the sort of person who needed to carry nothing with them. Currently, when she had to leave the village on the retrieval missions she occasionally did in her capacity as an ANBU headhunter, she carried a backpack full of medical supplies and a containment scroll for the bodies, as well as five Kunai. She was working her way down from her full set of thirty, but knew she was not yet ready to go out with no equipment at all. She had senbon sewn into the lining of her ANBU vest, but other than that, she carried no weapons.

She leaned back in her desk chair and held her palm up, rotating it slightly and manipulating her weapon to maintain focus in the original direction. Sweat beaded on her forehead and it began to fluctuate and she snapped the blade back into her palm. With a disgusted sigh, Sakura yanked open her desk drawer and poured a serving of sake into her rapidly cooling tea. She went to put it back on its nest of old paperwork, but changed her mind and took a deep swig directly from the bottle before twisting the cap back on and putting it away.

A knock sounded at her door. Sakura sighed. "Come on!" When the door slid open, she only caught a brief glimpse of a face she recognized as a newer paperwork Chuunin, and then she could only see the top of his head as he bowed deeply in her direction. The mop of black hair mumbled something at her and extended a hand with a thick mission folder. "Set it on my desk, then", she grumbled. After he had left, she flipped it open. It was full of profiles of foreign shinobi, some of which she had copies of at home. There seemed to be a concentration of Kiri shinobi- actually, only one was a Konoha nukenin, some no-name fifteen year old she didn't recall ever seeing.

Sakura groaned. Tsunade only gave her folders like these for a few reasons- either she was going to be sent out to bring them all back to Konoha in tiny, bloody pieces, or she was going to be stuck in Water country doing diplomatic bullshit for an extended period sometime in the future. Honestly, Sakura had no idea which was worse. Diplomatic missions were cushy, but she had to behave herself all of the time, and deal with snotty politicians who invariably thought they'd gotten lucky to work with the little girl. She enjoyed when she got to crush them at their own stupid back-stabbing game, but she did prefer to rip someone's jaw off when they spoke to her wrongly. Unfortunately, she had found out that jaw-ripping was generally considered rude and a bit of a ham-handed solution in a diplomatic situation.

On the other hand, head-hunting missions often took her away from her precious books and weapons development for extended periods of time. She was long past being the stupid little princess who complained about sleeping in the dirt for days on end, but that didn't mean Sakura preferred it to her own bed, by any means. She was often resigned to a supportive role, as the medical support and the last resort ass-kickery specialist. She constantly found herself twitching and wishing for a chance to bash heads in and rip out precious organs while her sissy compatriots danced around whatever missing-nin they were after, screeching about crimes against Konoha and the ideal of the will of fire, and on one horrifically memorable occasion, the relative youthfulness of a particular criminal's actions. Sakura had petitioned Tsunade for permission to take assignments solo, or at least to be the heavy hitter, but Tsunade had yet to let her take the lead. As Sakura was more than capable, she privately thought Tsunade's decision was either spawned from her sensei's bloated sadism, or her familial sense of attachment to her ex-student. Sakura loved Tsunade just as strongly, but she couldn't imagine a situation that would justify sticking her with mission after mission with Rock Lee and Kiba, even a misguided attempt to keep her safe. So it was probably the sadism theory.

She paused at a photo of a Kirigakure kunoichi. The dark hair and brown eyes were rather unremarkable, but what she lacking in coloring she certainly made up for in eccentricity of dress. Sakura had never seen a woman with a Mohawk before, although it certainly accentuated the woman's high cheekbones and tilted eyes. Sakura self-consciously ruffled her own short hair and tried to tousle it to stand up. It was a little too long on top, barely choppier than Lee's infamously unflattering bowl cut. She frowned. Maybe it needed to be a bit shorter after all. A nice pixie cut, with sideways bangs. Her current hair was still parted in the middle, revealing her widow's peak. She'd never liked it, after all. Why not cover it?

This was probably information she needed to study for a long-term infiltration or diplomatic mission, she decided. Tsunade didn't generally make a habit of pissing off foreign villages by sending her apprentice off to smash their citizens into itty bitty pieces. Granted, she would probably think it was really amusing if Sakura did so, but only in a black humor sort of way, and any amusement would have been overshadowed by the annoying need to take her apprentice in for psychological evaluations and possible criminal proceedings.

She snapped the folder shut and slid it into her everyday rucksack. She went to leave, then grimaced and pulled off the scrubs she'd been wearing over her everyday clothes, hanging them up on the hook behind the door. They were only a little bloody. She'd wash them the next time she came in. She didn't bother to lock the door behind her. No one who would risk angering her by entering her private space would be stopped by a lock, and everyone else was a non-concern.

Sakura checked her wristwatch and sighed. It was evening, meaning that her mentor was probably setting in with the piles of paperwork about now, torn between the desire to avoid it and her burning need to finish as quickly as possible and hit the bars or gambling dens. Knowing her, Tsunade hadn't eaten. Sakura headed to the market to get a couple of bento and a fresh bottle of high-quality sake, and took them to Hokage tower. Tsunade greeted the food and alcohol with welcome arms, and the entrance of someone with high enough clearance to help with paperwork as the coming of her personal savior.

Sakura settled in for a long few hours of wading through permission forms and sorting and assigning missions for the coming week, categorizing and discarding as needed. Hmm, a request for someone to help haul stone from the quarry out of town to a development area? She hovered over the lists of genin and Chuunin teams who hadn't yet been assigned missions, then viciously grinned and picked Konohamaru's team, adding Sai as their temporary supervisor. After all, he was on temporary light-duty leave from ANBU, and she was the kind of caring friend who would never let someone languish at home, painting all day, when they would be delighted to watch twelve-year olds carry big rocks for a five-hour span. This had the added benefit of freeing up their Jounin-sensei, Ebisu, for a quick but mildly hazardous escort mission to Suna with two Chuunin partners.

She flipped through her own folders to see what she had coming in the next week. So far, it looked like three shifts at the hospital –Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, followed by late nights in the administration Wednesday and Thursday, and then departure for a short mission to Suna to transport the current evolution of the on-going treaty negotiations and accept or deny suggested changes in Suna. It looked to be a month-long mission, accounting for the four day trip there, four days coming back, and a week and a half in town staying with Gaara and doing a quick inspection of the general hospital to see how the training program she had helped pilot was going on its own and make recommendations for its future direction. This bizarre combination was fairly standard stuff, for Sakura, at least.

The month-long trip presented other issues, however. It was diplomatic work, albeit in a very friendly village. In Sakura language, this translated to a month where binge drinking and pretty much anything enjoyable would be frowned up, and thus she should get as much in as possible before she had to leave. She mentally made note to make plans with Ino for a bar crawl Wednesday night. It wouldn't do to show up particularly sober, after all. What if the other kages slipped and thought Konoha was somewhat respectable? That would be terrible.

She went home and packed her travel bag, preferring to get it out of the way. In went two respectable changes of clothes, an extra traveling outfit, her favorite medical dictionary, a jar of sake and a bottle of vodka. On an impulse, she included a small makeup case with scent-free soap and other necessities. It would probably be better if she arrived in a somewhat tidy state, although she personally did not give a single fuck if the Suna delegation thought she looked nice. If her job was to impress them with her pretty face and sweet demeanor, Tsunade would have sent Ino or Hinata. Her job was probably to tell Gaara "no" a whole lot and to politely inform the medical nins that they were sorry wastes of space and needed to work a lot harder in order to drag themselves out of the pit of mediocrity. Tsunade was a fan of the 'tough love' school of philosophy.

It had worked for Sakura, so she couldn't complain. When her academy teachers had praised her brain (but never forced her to struggle to use it) and failed to comment at all on her piss-poor taijutsu, they hadn't been doing her any favors. She tried not to think about how ridiculous and incompetent she had been even for a Genin, but it was a little painful when she did recollect it. By all rights, she should have been a bloody spatter on the dirt before the end of her first C class mission. The ability to recite everything she'd read in the Academy was rather unlikely to impress any enemy nin into sparing her sorry ass. She took the time to imagine Zabuza of the Bloody Mist patting her on the head and grinning at her while she told him about the history of the Hokages among the corpses of her genin team. Nope, still seems unlikely.

In penance for how pathetic she had been, Sakura had volunteered to scour the Academy for candidates to take into Tsunade's dream program of medical ninja. She had yet to encounter anyone with the potential for chakra control like Tsunade's or even hers, but there had so far been seven capable pre-teens she met with on a weekly basis to test and give assignments for the following week.

That meeting was actually coming up tomorrow- it was always Saturday. Sakura made note to wrangle some hospital underling to supervise them for the time she'd be in Suna. The children were not very advanced at all yet, but having the celebrity Godaime's apprentice work with them afforded an air of exclusivity and devotion to their leadership that Tsunade only encouraged. After all, the future of the village was dependant on these youth, and the younger a person was when they developed loyalty, the stronger that sense would be. Sakura was initially rather uncomfortable with the idea- it smacked of childhood indoctrination- but that was ridiculous. If teaching children that they would someday kill for their village didn't bother her scruples, then encouraging them to see their leadership as personally invested in their futures was hardly offensive in comparison. Besides, the younger they started training and developing advanced styles, the stronger and more capable Konoha's future elites would be.

Six days and a hair cut later, Sakura stood by Konoha's main gates, waiting for whoever was going to deliver the documents she was transporting to Suna. She idly wished that someone had been assigned to accompany her, but she didn't exactly need backup for a generally safe journey and the actual mission objectives were such that only she was needed. Sakura made the decision to call up a summoning to keep her company. She had been given the honor of signing her mentor's summoning scroll, but it was mostly a formality and Sakura had only called a slug once to introduce herself. Her personal summoning was a great deal less impressive than Katsuya, but Sakura's exotic lynx summons were much more suited to her personality and fighting style. Her mentor was a medic first and foremost, a terrifying warrior who would much rather be keeping others safe in a dangerous conflict than confronting the enemy outright. Sakura was the other way around- a warrior who happened to heal her allies, but generally after she was done kicking the shit out of whoever had dared touch them. Tsunade was frustrated with this choice, but she didn't really have a good answer when Sakura informed her that the voice insider her head would rather kick gluteus maximus than heal it.

Sakura casually bit down on her thumb and breathed on the blood that appeared, calling her favorite friend. A lynx the size of a wolfhound appeared and sniffled indignantly at her, rubbing her head against Sakura's thigh in a haughty demand for petting. She complied, until her scroll arrived and the two took off.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura hadn't been to Suna in almost a year, but she was relieved to see that it hadn't changed very much. It was still a shithole full of filthy sand in every crevice imaginable (and some that weren't), crabby shinobi in hideous uniforms, and wrinkly old people trying to sell riceballs on the streets. She held in a sigh as she followed her completely unnecessary escort to the hospital she had been to dozens of times before. Apparently, someone had helpfully scheduled the evaluation meeting with the hospital trainees at ten at night. It would be rather satisfying to take her anger out on the nin showing her around, but it might harm her reputation as a gracious guest with minimal psychotic tendencies. Sakura flexed her toes inside her sandals, tapping her left foot against her right ankle in a hope of knocking the crusted sand off. She was pretty spectacularly unsuccessful. Sakura masterfully kept her expression blank while her blood pressure skyrocketed. Nonetheless, the secretary on the other end of the lobby looked up at her, clearly unnerved. Perhaps her handle on her killing intent wasn't quite as masterful as she'd previously assumed… Experimentally, she imagined ripping the woman's head off of her shoulders and using it to bludgeon her way through the swinging doors to freedom. She refocused her attention on the shaking civilian. Yepp, definite reaction. Perhaps the poker face needs some work.

In an attempt to diffuse the situation, Sakura inhaled deeply and interlaced her fingers. She gave an enormous, catlike stretch and relaxed when bones cracked in her back and shoulders. Green eyes focused intently on the door across the hall, even while rolling her head from side to side,

She hadn't been to see Gaara or any representatives yet. Apparently, there had been some sort of plumbing emergency in Hokage tower and the Sunagakure elite had been dispatched to get things under control. As such, she had ended up getting shunted around from administration building to building, and eventually over to the hospital for a last-minute meeting to see her former students. They were probably terrified, poor dears.

They were right to be. Sakura was rather amiable off-the-clock, but when she was being paid to get something done she didn't cut corners or slack. Besides, she was in a rather bad mood. She was smelly and there was sand in all sorts of places where it was not intended to be. It would have been polite for her hosts to take her to her quarters to recover and clean up before they scheduled any meetings for her, but such was the nature of bureaucracy. If they could plan events in such a way as to inconvenience absolutely everyone involved, they would do that, and then plan for everyone to work through lunch, dinner, and serve them broccoli as snacks.

Sakura hated broccoli.

The meeting went about as planned. She yelled, they cried. She screamed and hit things, they promised to do better. She threw the conference table out the window, and they went down to the forest to make a new one and spend all night sitting around it making lists of what they could do to become less incompetent and embarrassing failures to their country and profession. Really, there weren't doing so badly. If they were training for any other profession, they probably would have been fine. But the life of a med-nin had to be uber organized and detail oriented. If a med-nin screwed up, their comrades died, and that was unacceptable. Sakura had every intention of beating the fear of incompetence into those kids if it killed her. Or them. Preferably them, in that scenario, seeing as how Sakura was pretty attached to this mortal coil. She was finally getting to the point where she both liked her life and could comfortably pretend most human beings didn't exist without fear of repercussions.

About half an hour after the sobbing ended and the glazed expressions of horror and sorrow were frozen onto purposefully still faces, Sakura tossed her knapsack on the floor of the entryway to her beautiful but dark suite and stripped out of her sweaty clothes on her way to the bathroom. She took great satisfaction in flinging her layers of shirts on the wooden floor with a _thwak_. She rather wished that she hadn't when she reached the sitting room barefoot and shirtless to found the Kazekage on the futon petting her summons. "Well. This is awkward." She stated in a monotone. "I was going to take a shower. Actually, I'm still going to take a shower. I have sand in all sorts of places where sand does not belong. If you're still here when I get out, I would love to discuss that treaty with you. If you aren't here, I am fully prepared to pretend that this thoroughly awkward encounter never happened.

Gaara looked more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him. It was almost flattering. She internally giggled at his look of total shock. She'd never seen him this stunned by the Suna women who flirted with him, some of whom were more voluptuous than she was (Sakura wasn't honest enough to admit it, but-frankly, everyone was more voluptuous than Sakura, possibly even Sai). "I will wait." He quietly asserted, averting his eyes. Kyria growled as he petted her harder than was acceptable.

Sakura preened a little bit and sashayed to the bathroom with a little more sass than was strictly necessary. Despite his social incompetence, the Kazekage WAS a total hunk. The fact that she could turn his head even when filthy and unwashed was a bit of an ego booster. When she stepped under the (not nearly hot enough) water, she already felt a lot better than she had before she'd gotten to the apartment.

When the shower water started running in the other room, Gaara looked the purring cat in the eyes and informed it with a serious expression that he had never seen breasts before today. He'd expected them to be more impressive, for all that other shinobi seemed fascinated with them. The cat internally agreed, but obligingly bit his hand out of loyalty to her flat-chested human who provided such nice alcohol.

Sakura toweled her hair dry, admiring the air of effortless attitude the wild spikes gave her appearance. She wrapped the warm cloth around her body and left the bathroom unselfconsciously. After all, her bag was on the other side of the apartment and he'd already seen her shirtless. Decorum had already flown out of the window and left for less depressing climates, where it could spend quality time with dignity and self-respect. Her feet padded quietly across the bamboo floor and she sunk into the chair opposite the reticent Kazekage. "So, what's so super urgent that we're having this meeting in my apartment instead of your nice conference room?" She inquired with about her usual level of tact and charm.

Gaara blinked. "I do not have a particularly nice conference room. The one that we had been using until recently is rather ugly. Besides, it has been overrun with moles, and Temari has not been home to remove them." Sakura didn't really have a reply for that, except "Temari is the mole expert?" With an expressionless face and dead pan voice, her guest elucidated that "She is terrified of small rodents. Kankoro has kindly suggested that we save the task for her to give her a chance to face her fear. He is very concerned that this will be a problem in future missions."

"Right. Well… That's sweet of him."

Things only went downhill from there. They did thankfully manage to amicably agree that it would be super cool if their two countries continued their ninety day streak of not killing each other. It was a nice streak, and probably a personal best on both villages' parts. Sakura drafted up an agreement detailing that they would continue not killing each other until such a time as they felt like they wanted to, and they mutually promised to lend support to help crush each other's enemies. They also managed to agree to trade Temari's fruit soup recipe for Tsunade's Sake Surprise desert recipe, but failed to come to a satisfactory conclusion to the proposed trade route and embargo on Rain's sugar and rice.

Sakura left Sand with sunburnt ears, a knapsack full of papers for Tsunade to sign, and a massive headache.

She spent the long trek back to Konoha alternately running briskly and walking so that she could work on her chakra blade. As she approached the border Konoha shared with Stone, she slowed down, put away her blade, and henged herself into a dark-haired, middle aged civilian man with positively obnoxious choices in clothing. Her other choice was to try to speed by so quickly that no one noticed her, but that was unlikely to pan out. She couldn't chance losing the documents she had in her knapsack-if she wasn't dead already, Tsunade would kill her with a rusty scalpel and a piece of pie. She'd seen it done before in Interrogations. It… wasn't a pretty sight.

Sakura sauntered past three different genin teams with their Jounin instructors within a period of a few hours. She took great pleasure in waiving gaily and attempting to draw them into painfully mundane conversation despite their persistent attempts to look stoic and tough. Several very uncomfortable-looking children did their best to hurry away from her on their way to whatever missions they had. Inwardly, she cackled. Shinobi were so serious.


End file.
